Leaderboard

No, you're making the assumption Ivan has the BMV wired to the alternator which is not true, so it cant go the wrong way round. Reversing the shunt will mean the electrons are going the wrong way and with only solar attached that means they will head in that direction and the panels will emit light rather than absorb them. This could cause problems at night if the boat next door does not like artificial light. Boat security at night should be improved though. Clever! It is pretty difficult to connect the BMV 712 shunt the wrong way round. The destruction book is quite explicit in what to do and is not confusing in any way. Ivan must be more of a muppet than me if he got it the wrong way round. Come on Ivan. Own up!

I have just been having a chat with the lovely couple that we used to moor next to at Hatherton Marina. Their current boat is called Baker's Dozen (Their surname is Baker). Ron built the boat himself. Before he retired his foundry used to bend the metal to supply the bow and stern sections for Les Allen boats and he has memories going back to childhood of the canals in the black country as his grandfather set up a foundry (I think in the mid 40's?) next to one of the inclined planes where coal was delivered by boat The previous boat he built in 1976 and it was called Baker's Boy. He mentioned to me that he would love to see a photo of his old boat again. He said it was around 35' long and they spent a lot of time boating on it with their two young children. They both have such fond memories of their times boating. He said the last he heard of his old boat it was owned by quite an elderly lady whomoored it on The Stratford Canal and it was called "Jamie" He has been trying to find a photo that might have the CRT registration number on it but without any joy. I can find this on CanalplanAC - I can't be certain that is the correct vessel and I am not certain I have got all the details as correct as I would like. I now it is a long shot but does anyone know if this boat might still be around somewhere or perhaps have a photo of it at all? Please do not put any current owner in a compromised position by posting details of it's current location on here. I would just love to try and bring a smile to dear old Ron's face by letting him know his boat is still around. He is struggling in lock down having to chop logs in the garden (even though he no longer has a stove to burn them in) He will be 82 next month and seeing as we can't share a curry with them to celebrate perhaps I can get some information on his old boat for him?

The owner occupier can take responsibility for her own safety in her home. The renter has to depend on somebody else. and as we all know, that somebody else might not care quite as much if the safety measures hit him in the pocket. Also, you can't sue yourself, but you can sue a landlord. They? They? Now who is choosing the easy target?

It is worse than that. If the shunt is connected the wrong way round it will make the engine run backwards too. The only solution is to swap the gear control cable on to the other side of the morse control lever so ahead becomes ahead again and astern astern. Going for an eight hour cruise will kill your batteries irretrievably. ? Jen

Looks the shunt is wired wrong way round so it thinks the discharge is a charge. I don’t have a BMV but I would normally expect a discharge of 0.8A to be shown as -0.8A. And that would explain why the SoC isn’t dropping and infinite time remaining. i expect if you now run the engine, it will start to show AH consumed and SoC decreasing.

Hi all, Proudly put a deposit down today, subject to survey, on a fabulous 60x12 widebeam on the Kennett and avon, first time moving aboard, but very excited and naturally a tad nervous, will be bringing her up to London. (viewing done with social distancing, the previous owner has ready moved off, and stayed on land whilst we viewed) Thanks Toby

That deserves a greenie. The data can be stored on an sd card on the Pi but I just use the victron site to record all the data, ie the Pi sends the data every minute to the victron site but it must store quite a bit on board as it all there even if the router goes down for an hour or so. The victron site holds the data for 6 months but it is easy to download it all in an excel spreadsheet every 3 months or so. If the pi crashes you only loose the data until it is rebooted. Mine has not crashed in the 12 months since installing it - contected to the victron site 24/7

Well the one end of the shunt is marked "Battery" and the other is marked "Charger". Considering that in my system, the shunt connects between the domestic battery -ve (the actual battery) and the starter "battery" -ve (actually the load/charger) I was half right! It's very easy and very explicit in TFM, which I didn't R hard enough I guess. I've just out-muppetted Bob. I really don't have a valid excuse. Thank heavens in this particular case current flows both ways through a shunt and no damage was done, apart from that to my battery stats and my pride. It's good to have a warning like this every now and again before I really break something expensive. For example, my MPPT. I understand that one must always connect the battery first, and the PV afterwards; when disconnecting, disconnect the PV first and the battery afterwards. In other words, the MPPT should never have the PV connected without a battery. (However I read that Victron have made the SmartSolar MPPT a little more muppetproof than most with regard to this connection order). The above implies that using the battery isolator could cause damage to the MPPT, right? Because if I shut off the battery, the MPPT is going to be connected to the PV but not the battery? This came up because I wanted to use the isolator before switching the shunt polarity. However I decided I'd better disconnect the solar first. I then wondered if perhaps the panels might not like being disconnected under load, all connected in series as they are that's 160V abruptly pulled from the bare wire terminal - sparky sparky! In the end I shaded the panels, flipped the isolator, switched the BMV shunt and reversed the process in less than a minute, and the MPPT seemed completely fine. But what should I do here for the future? I feel like a circuit breaker on the PV positive wire would be a wise idea, placed directly next to the isolator with a plaque in Muppettese instructing said muppet to flip the circuit breaker before flipping the isolator. Would this do any mischief to the panels themselves - perhaps they should they have a dump load attached? Am I overthinking this whole thing out of embarassment for the shunt error?

The screws would scrape grooves in the shaft with the fore and aft movement and keep the inner bearing track from rotating with the shaft. Not a nice fix, but I suppose not much alternative if there's no room for a proper double UJ Aquadrive. This is the trouble with more modern boats everyone clamours for more and more cabin space with the engine and transmission stuffed right up the back as possible and sacrifice sufficient engine space with a proper marine inatallation.

Nah, the sterling engine on the stove top blows you away from it.

Moor the boat, make sure the dish has a line of sight to the sat. remembering that you don't need to point the dish straight at the sat. as that is not quite how it works (trees and buildings are a menace) , get it about right using a sat finder - cheap and nasty is fine- and then if you can find a signal strength facility on the telly adjust the dish to the best you can get. This will tell you if the whole caboodle is working properly. We do this half a dozen times a week so it is not as bad as it sounds. Boats wobble so don't use a long pole for the dish - it just exaggerates the movement. If you still have trouble try sitting the dish on a pole on the bank to eliminate other probs. The joints in the co ax cable are vulnerable and we re make ours from time to time.. We have a primitive system and it works well but you must fine tune it from the televisions own signal strength thingy. This works for us all over Europe from Holland down to the Rhone and across to the Rhine and the dish, box, telly, and sat finder are the sort of stuff that most people would not even pull out of a skip.

I dont think they do Peter , more likely what they want is to levy additional taxes either direct or indirect and the young couple who let out Grannies old flat around the corner are the easy targets . Aslam down the local Kebab shop with a couple of workers living upstairs they wont be interested in and thats how this Country is run nowadays , they always choose the easy target and nine times out of ten that target will be the law abiding one

Especially when you mention Brexit

From experiencing the simplest of pleasures comes the greatest satisfaction. From toothbrushes to Ocean going liners we have flooded ourselves with technology that goes beyond necessity. It's time for a reset.

I can see why you are asking that Tony, but if the meter is showing 0.8A draw then the Ahrs should be showing a number bigger (I really mean less) than 0. Also the Cummulative Ahr is -101 Ahrs so it is counting amps out. Yes there may be other draws not counted if the shunt is wired wrong but the Ahr should be reading - something. Ivan, you havent done something silly like jamming in the two buttons that you use to sync back to 100%? I cant see why the 0Ahr is zero. I will ponder the question over a glass of malt I am about to pour.......and no there is no decent history...which is why i connected mine to a rasp Pi.

I worked with him once... he's tiny.

< adopts smug git expression >

Hmm. I think your main issue is a different one from the problem the rest of us have been trying to diagnose! Which end of that hatch is lower i.e. nearer the stern (assuming the boat is ballasted with the stern lower than the bow)? Water could be running along the under side of the gunwale for some distance before emerging. So all we can say at the moment is that the leak is probably either at the point where the drips occur or forward of that point. The leakage may be coming through the new side hatch, or it could be that the hatch installation interrupted a previous leakage path which deposited the water somewhere unseen. Can you easily remove the cabin lining in the area of the leak to see where the water is coming from?

Bit harsh, I haven't said I would play yet, although I do see how peeps would be envious

Whenever things went a bit wrong, and even when they didn’t, Rich always seemed to get stick. His resignation came shortly after a spate of getting a hard time for his hard work. Co-incidence? I suspect not. Perhaps the tech person should be shielded from this sort of crap by not being a named person who can be the target of the grumpy ones. Anonymous in the background might be better?